Born in Los Angeles in 1945, Wayne Levin, a social activist worked in the U.S. navy off the coast of Vietnam in the 1960s. He worked with environmentalist and renowned Hawai'i photographer Robert Wenkham in the 1970s, sailed through the Pacific to Australia, shot surfers underwater in the 1980s, did a solo world tour, and eventually turned from a young street photographer to an expert underwater photographer.